


Silhouette

by AntiKryptonite



Category: Chuck (TV)
Genre: Character Development, Chuck Versus The Cliffhanger, Chuck Versus The Crown Vic, Chuck Versus The Final Exam, Chuck Versus The Lethal Weapon, Chuck Versus the Goodbye, Developing Relationship, F/M, Sarah POV, Season 1, Season 2, Season 3, Seasons 1 through 5, Through the Years, season 4, season 5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-04
Updated: 2013-12-09
Packaged: 2018-01-03 10:34:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1069451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AntiKryptonite/pseuds/AntiKryptonite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From the moment she came to Burbank and met Chuck Bartowski, Sarah Walker has changed from CIA agent to woman. Five scenes in five different years that illustrate just how real she’s become, thanks to a certain lovable nerd.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Real

\---

December, 2007

\---

“Just let me ask you one thing first. Did you kiss me that night because you thought you were going to die and mine were the closest lips available…or was it actually about me?”

Burning. Burning and twisting and searing its way through her every time he said the word, every time he mentioned that night, every time he brought up that moment when nothing that mattered the most had mattered at all. An ache wound its way through her heart and stomach and mind and soul at the mere sound of his voice and the look of forced bravery in his eyes as he confronted her before the Christmas tree, his very presence burning to ash all that her conman father and the CIA had built in her. Hearing him mention that night—the _incident_ , as she insisted on calling it, or the _kiss_ , as he stubbornly kept using—hurt, an actual physical pain that struck deeper even than that inflicted when she had finally listened to the torturously sweet messages he had left on her phone while she witnessed Bryce’s resurrection. Hurt so much that she feared she might actually stop breathing right there in his living room, might actually drop dead to the floor as her heart and lungs mutually decided to give up the fight and quit on her.

Couldn’t he see what it was doing to her to hear him continually refer to that moment she had convinced herself existed outside of time? Hadn’t he heard the desperation leaking from every pore in her body when she begged him to stop using that lethal word?

Kiss.

A weapon all on its own for all it made her think and imagine and feel and _want_.

No. He just didn’t—couldn’t, or he’d have dropped the subject—understand how much it _hurt_ to be reminded of that _incident_ , to once more feel the debilitating fear that he would die and the simultaneous, all-consuming relief that she could let go of everything as the timer counted down the seconds of her contrived life. The relief that she could finally, in what snippet of time remained to her, throw off all that the mission demanded of her and just be herself, whatever or whoever that might be. That little ember of herself—the real her she had never before known—that had been birthed the instant he whispered kind words to a young ballerina, the instant he brought her flowers and smiled that heart-stopping, oblivious smile at her door, the instant he ran from the fast-approaching vehicle in fear and fallen to the ground and faced his death and called out his concern for _her_.

She had given into that ember he had been slowly, steadily fanning into tiny, frightened flames, keeping it alive by way of his smiles and jokes and questions. She had, in what she had thought to be her last moment, embraced that bit of herself he had ignited, and she had pulled him close to her, begging him without words to face death with her by showing—or rather, _continuing_ to show—her what it felt like to be loved by Chuck Bartowski.

And now every time he mentioned that night—which was far too often; even once was too often—she could still feel him stepping forward beneath her desperate grip on his shirt, could remember the feel of his hands on her back as he pulled her close in return, could taste his surprise morph into eager earnestness and delight and disbelief and maybe a hint of fear and over it all that overriding, incomprehensible devotion he directed to her and her alone.

But there wasn’t a timer ticking life away anymore. There was a new mission now and no excuses and an abundance of surveillance cameras and…and she couldn’t. She just couldn’t. She couldn’t remember that night, couldn’t let it into her mind, couldn’t allow that breach in her defenses.

Yet there he stood, asking her to consciously recall all of that, and she _couldn’t_ , not when it hurt so much. Not when there were cameras and Casey and Graham and Beckman and protocols and expectations and punishments for disappointing those expectations…the accompanying plane ticket to a life—bleak, barren, unlivable—absent of all things Chuck.

So she couldn’t tell him how much boiled within her. Couldn’t tell him that she was afraid and happy and desperate and terrified and awed and frightened and so, so confused because it wasn’t supposed to be like this. This wasn’t the mission, it wasn’t allowed, and she didn’t know how she was supposed to feel right now. Because, after all, Bryce was back. He was alive, he wasn’t dead, and he had been here just a few short days ago. She had touched him, and yes, she had kissed him but only because she had finally listened to Chuck’s messages and had wanted so badly to rid herself of temptation. And she had hoped—irrationally, illogically, yes, but wasn’t all hope irrational?—hoped that Bryce could erase the memory of Chuck.

But it hadn’t worked. All it had done was underscore everything she had thought and felt when she first kissed—no! that lethal word again—Chuck.

But Bryce had been dead, and that had hurt too, and she had thought she was in love with him, which must have been a flawed assumption because all she felt for him was so faint and indiscernible and inconsequential next to the rioting, swirling emotions that threatened to overcome her and drown her beneath their indecipherable depths whenever she thought of Chuck. Yet…how could she _not_ love Bryce when they had been partners and he had saved her life and made her feel _something_ after so many years of not feeling anything and given her something warm and alive to hold onto when it seemed only cold and death surrounded her? How could she move on so quickly even after his death had made her revert to that numbed state of existence?

She didn’t understand it—it was wholly outside her ken—but she _had_ moved on. She didn’t love Bryce anymore…or at least, she didn’t think she did…but what if she was wrong? What if Chuck was the flawed assumption, the mirage? After all, he was the more dreamlike of the two, so perfect and innocent and unblemished and clean; even his faults only made him more attractive—the nerdiness that stamped him as ‘normal,’ and the fear during missions that he so unknowingly overcame whenever he saw her in danger, and the way he trusted her even while wanting so badly to know her. Sometimes, in fact, he was so perfect, so achingly sweet that it hurt with a laser-sharp intensity, enough to send her scrambling back behind her mask in order to conceal the pleasant dagger twisting and turning in her heart.

Sometimes…like now. Waiting for her answer to his daring, foolish question with fear in his eyes and hope in his heart and blatant temptation in the very sight of him.

But Casey was watching, was listening, and Graham was depending on her, and Chuck himself—his safety was her responsibility. And to protect him she needed to be with him, but he wasn’t taking his question back, wasn’t dulling it with his customary rambling. So it stayed there, hanging like ice in the crystalline air between them…and the memory of Bryce, serrated as a blade, and the agony inflicted by Lou, too, and…and this was so confusing! She didn’t know how to do this, didn’t know how to handle this influx of…of… _emotion_! It hadn’t been part of her training, and it was far, far outside the parameters of the mission, and her dad had never taught her to handle this thing called love!

Sensory overload—she had endured that before, thanks to Carina’s improvised blundering and the resulting short-tempered suspicion in the terrorist leader who had caught Sarah sneaking through the hallway Carina was supposed to have cleared. That was torture, obviously—both working with Carina and the sensory overload piled atop the customary interrogation beatings—but this…this was so much worse than that. An emotional overload, each emotion like a tiny blister that burst when she least expected it, distracting her with a new pain before she could fully conquer or recover from the preceding one, each coming so fast she didn’t have time to catch her breath.

Was this what Chuck felt like all the time? She felt a growing sense of horrified comprehension. No wonder emotions spilled from his every gesture and blink and word and joke and movement, not if there were so many of them always assaulting him. How could he stand it? How could he bear it without going stark, raving mad? He had claimed his pain threshold was low, but he had lied, must have because this was the most painful thing she had ever experienced. How could he juggle all of these conflicting feelings? How could he _function_ when every which way you turned there was some other new feeling that took you in its teeth and shook you till your vision blurred and your mind melted and vertigo enveloped you in its dizzying embrace?

She couldn’t do it. He was stronger than her and so much braver, constantly daring these awful, terrible blisters of compressed torture. She couldn’t stand it. She had only the mission and protocol and the lessons given her by the CIA when she had desperately needed something to cling to. So she retreated, ran away, hid behind the shields her teachers had given her—the expressionless face, the correct response, the emotional distance. Isolation, that was the answer. If she were alone, alone behind her barricaded walls, then he couldn’t find her, couldn’t tempt her, couldn’t hurt her by bringing up dreams dreamed in the light of death, couldn’t pierce her with those soft brown-green eyes so full of longing and desire and forgiveness, couldn’t beguile her with that adorably-shy-to-brilliantly-explosive-in-three-seconds-flat smile. 

And once she was sufficiently protected, she pulled out her final defense. It was her only weapon—her gun was useless, her knives pointless, her back-up crumbling beneath his assault. So she used the mask and the words, and she raised her remaining weapon, aimed, and fired.

“It was a mistake,” she said clearly. “One I will not make again.”

Only…her weapon must have misfired because it didn’t help her, didn’t eliminate the threat or kill the searing agony writhing within her. Instead, it made it _worse_ , the damage it did enhanced by the bleak hurt overtaking Chuck’s entire face from her first hurled word, and she knew it had affected him as surely as it had her.

And she couldn’t make it better—she had already made it worse trying to correct the situation. Now his anguished eyes were mute reproach, made all the worse because there was no blame when he looked at her. Instead, there was, horribly, the beginning of the same emotional distance she was employing.

He had taken her weapon! And his aim must have been truer than hers because the sight of him withdrawing from her was a thousand times more terrible than anything that had come before. He was giving up on her. And, oh, how she wished so contradictorily that she could step forward and admit how lost she felt, how he was the only light she could see, how she wanted to see if that kiss had been unique or if those same feelings could be brought back to life within her should they kiss again. She wanted him to step toward her and smile at her and say something that would momentarily banish her emotional demons and make her laugh. Wanted his sister or Devon to be there so that it would be acceptable for him to reach out and touch her, so that she could ignore her weapons and shields and fear and touch him without fear of reprisal.

But no, that wouldn’t work, would it? Not for him. Because then it would only be a cover, and as a result, there would be that tiny hint of sadness lurking in his eyes, and he would be so tentative, so unsure—not at all like he had been when it had been real and he had kissed her on that threshold between life and death.

It always made him so sad when it was fake even though that was all she had. He wanted real, and he didn’t seem to realize that _she_ wasn’t real, that she had never been real, that she had never had a chance to find out what parts of her were real before she had been forced to slide into the fake and the unreal to earn her dad’s approval in the form of that bowl of Rocky Road ice cream. He didn’t know that the real her was a shadow only given substance and form by him, that she was only real when he made her that way, that she only became the true _her_ —the her she was beginning to think to herself might actually be Sarah Walker—when his words and his laugh and his faith and belief and trust and obvious admiration made her real.

But he didn’t know any of that. He thought the mask was the real her, thought the false identity and the fake cover and the simulated emotions were true.

And if she told him differently? She’d never get to see him again. She’d never get to hear him tease her or make oblique references she didn’t understand but laughed at anyway because his expressions were so funny or see him smile and laugh even when he was afraid and sad and unhappy. She’d never get to be real again. All that would be left were the falsehoods and the lies and the masks and the fragile shadow that only appeared when his light silhouetted it.

She couldn’t allow that to happen. So she walked away even before her words were done resounding through the room. And she knew it was wrong—knew it because he was unhappy. Knew it because the storm of emotions tearing her into tiny little shredded pieces grew almost unbearably painful and now she could point straight to her heart and say with surety how many times it was beating per minute because each agonizing thump bit through her and obliterated a little bit more of her view of that perfect world she had glimpsed for just over three seconds.

She walked away because he had to be safe. Because even if he hated her, he had to be alive, had to be protected, had to be innocent. Because she needed him in her life and that tiny ember of realness within her wanted him to need her too. Because that flickering shadow of truth silhouetted within her had become just substantial enough to form itself around its own more personal mission—the most important of all.

Protect Chuck Bartowski at any and all costs.

And in that moment, when she walked away not for the greater good but for _his_ good, Sarah Walker—the real, true Sarah Walker, the real _her_ —was born.

\---


	2. Status Quo

\---

March, 2009

\---

“Sarah, I’m not going to move in with you…because I can’t. And you know why I can’t. I’m crazy about you and…and I’ve always been. But, you know, having a fake relationship, that’s one thing. But living together is…I mean, every day, being around each other and…and…and that’s why I can’t do it. And I hope you understand.”

Falling. She was falling, spiraling downward, outward, away from him, lost with no point of gravity or white-shirted, gray-tied, pocket-protectored anchor to steady her or pull her back to the pretty courtyard with its entrancing fountain and welcoming lights. There was only her, alone and abandoned and lost. Again.

She had thought she finally had it all figured out. Ever since finding her hand wrapped around her gun and realizing that she was fully prepared to draw on a fellow agent to keep Chuck safe from the helicopter coming to extract him, prepared to do _anything_ to keep him with _her_ , to keep him innocent and smiling…ever since that night, she had known exactly what she wanted. She had known with all the surety that the cold, slick feel of her gun in her hand could give her that she was hopelessly, helplessly compromised.

But it had been okay. It had. She was still able to protect him, and Chuck knew she was on his side. And if there had been moments when things had seemed bleak and the future had looked as if it would be filled with Jill…well, even then, at least she had been there for him, able to see him and listen to his rambling, amusing rants and luxuriate in his open, slightly-smaller-than-it-used-to-be smiles. At least she had been around to protect him when yet another person from his past had betrayed him, used him, manipulated him, and then tried to convince him they had done it all for his sake.

She hated that he always left himself open to that sort of torture even as she knew that if he wasn’t so forgiving, she herself would never be able to win any more smiles or favors from him or have a hope of keeping that devotion that somehow—even during those awful days with Jill—he still gave her. After all, she, too, used and manipulated him, openly, blatantly, repeatedly. But that was different, she told herself every time. So very different. She did it to protect him, and keep him safe, and make sure no harm came to him and blurred his smile, and…and…and she _hated_ that her own excuses sounded just like Bryce’s and Jill’s, just like Long Shore’s.

But Jill had come and gone, and when it was all over and done with, shut away behind thick walls and locked doors—in the end, _she_ had been the one still with Chuck. And they had been happy again. Status quo was better than nothing—in fact, sometimes it was all that kept her sane. And yes, sometimes status quo made Chuck sad, and sometimes it forced difficult decisions on him, but at least it kept her with him. At least it left her where his opinion of her and his trust in her could continue to strengthen that hidden shadow that was _her_.

But then Cole came. And Chuck looked at him and he saw Bryce, and she had known he did, _knew_ that Chuck couldn’t see himself clearly at all, could only see holes and failures and voids when he looked in the mirror. He didn’t see what she and his sister and Morgan and Awesome and everyone at Buy More and even Casey saw when they looked at him—the strengths and the hope and the sheer goodness that rubbed off on everyone he came into contact with and the inimitable charm that was his and his alone and that he so often used on her so unknowingly.

She thought, sometimes, that it was one of the greatest tragedies in the world that he could never, not even once, realize just how special, how important, how _amazing_ he was. And sometimes she imagined that it was up to her—the _real_ her, the silhouette gradually becoming more substantial with every day spent in his company—she imagined it was up to her to see him as he really was, to protect that truth for him, to ensure he never changed.

But to do so—to keep him safe in _every_ way—they had to maintain status quo. No matter how much it hurt both of them.

So she laughed at his jokes and smiled when he did and listened when he talked and did her best to keep him out of harm’s way…and she never said a word about her private resolution, her inward awe. She let him give and give and give, and she accepted all that he gave but never gave him anything in return, not even when cover rings circled their fingers and the memory of a private breakfast tempted her and he invited her to ‘their’ house in the suburbs. Especially not then.

It was safer that way.

Only now…now with his sweet refusal to an apartment with her echoing in her ears, she was beginning to understand that Chuck didn’t want to be _safe_. He wanted to be _happy_.

And she didn’t know how to do that. Didn’t know how to give him that.

Survival was key, that and the mission. There was nothing else, not in the bigger-picture world in which she lived. Her dad had taught her to complete the con even if it meant breaking her arm. The CIA had taught her that her life was secondary to the mission.

But Chuck…Chuck hadn’t learned those lessons. He didn’t think that way.

And Cole came—threatening their fragile status quo—and Sarah tried, she really did. She tried to let Chuck know that she was still there for him. But subtle compliments and insults thrown at Cole in Chuck’s presence and advice on how to make it through torture sessions and forced jokes during forced intimacy and shooting an enemy in the back to save his life—those weren’t enough for Chuck. He didn’t understand them the way she meant them, didn’t see them the way a spy would. Chuck was open and honest and forthright and _normal_ , and she wasn’t any of those things, and she didn’t know how to tell him that she knew how much he was hurting, didn’t know how to tell him that she was doing everything she could to help him.

Cole _did_ remind her of Bryce. He was handsome and captivating and smooth and he liked her. But he only liked her because she was beautiful and she was a spy and she could pretend she knew something about doctoring a gunshot wound. He liked her because he wanted something warm in this cold life and because he wanted to feel alive for a few minutes in between missions and because she had helped him complete his assignment.

Once upon a time, that had been enough. It had been enough for her and Bryce, and if not for Chuck, it probably would have been enough for her and Cole.

But once upon a time was before Chuck. And now…now it would never be enough, not anymore, not ever again. Because Chuck liked her for _real_ reasons. He liked her because she didn’t like olives and because she had hated high school and because she taught him how to fly a helicopter by referencing a video game and because she wore a blue shirt with little buttons just for him and because she liked only the thinnest coating of wasabi on her crab-cakes and because she would shoot a man for threatening his life and his family and because…because…because he _knew_ her.

And he still cared.

He cared _because_ of those things, not _despite_ them. He cared because he thought she was incredibly precious. Even after everything—Bryce, shooting Mauser and lying about it, taking away his privacy, forcing him on missions he didn’t want to go on—he still cared.

It was enough to send her retreating back behind the walls she had cowered behind all her life except that Cole—the pseudo-Bryce that Chuck so obviously wanted to hate and so characteristically could not bring himself to—had, ironically enough, made her realize exactly why his own kisses couldn’t move her and his lines couldn’t charm her and his accomplishments couldn’t win her.

It was hard, in their world, to find someone who cared. And it was impossible, she now so intimately knew, to walk away.

She had found that person—found the man who cared about her even knowing what she did and who she was or wasn’t.

And she couldn’t walk away. She hadn’t been able to on that helipad, and she certainly couldn’t now, after their second first date.

It would be easy, now that Cole was gone, to return to status quo, but the real her—stronger and more defined—couldn’t let Chuck continue on, day after day, unaware that he had nothing to worry about from Bryce or Cole or any other superspy, not when he was able to accomplish as much or more than any of them with only his natural skills, not when he was so much… _more_ …than anyone else. She had wanted to tell him, tell him that he was safe in that regard as well as all others, that she would protect his place as well as she protected him. Tell him in such a way that they could continue to pretend she was still uncompromised and he was still just an asset.

And she should still tell him, no matter that he had disarmed her with his stunning declaration; she knew she should. But how? Words came so much easier to him than to her, and the words she needed were frustratingly elusive. Already afraid, tentative, and unsure, she was now thrown off-balance, and how could she tell him when she couldn’t get her mind to string two words together, couldn’t catch her breath, couldn’t open her mouth? She was frozen, uncomprehending by necessity.

Because it was one thing to care about a spy. Quite another to _love_ a spy.

And he had admitted it. Oh, he had skillfully avoided the word itself, probably knowing just what would happen should he utter that fatal syllable aloud. But it was there. It was, without a doubt, the most beautiful rejection she had ever been given and certainly the most touching thing any man had ever said to her.

But it upset status quo in a way nothing else could have done.

“I hope you understand,” he said, and how could she not? Even if she didn’t, even if she continued to pretend that she didn’t know what they two constantly danced around, she would never be cruel enough to tell him that. All that was left for her was to acknowledge what he had said and go back to the way things had been…even though nothing was the same at all. Everything had changed.

Or had it?

It wasn’t like his feelings had blossomed over night. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t wondered, in the most private of moments, if she couldn’t actually put an accurate label on what she felt for her asset. It wasn’t as if he wouldn’t quit coming over to the Orange Orange for lunch or stop inviting her over to family gatherings and Buy More events or start treating her differently. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t already proven just how quickly he would choose her safety over Jill or just how easily she could hurt him with a few words or just how much he wanted something with her.

In fact, it was almost like nothing had changed at all.

But how was that possible? How could his declaration not have upended her entire world? How could it not have made tremors shake through her soul and threaten to undo all she had learned throughout her varied life? It was almost as if…as if…as if everything was still status quo.

He had loved her even without saying it. He had showed it, demonstrated it, proved it every day. And she…she had loved him already, too. And she had showed it, too, even if it was in a way entirely different from his.

Nothing had changed at all.

Which was good. Infinitely good. It meant he was still safe, and she was still there, and she would continue to protect him, and he would continue to love her from afar, creating hope where disappointment and shattered dreams should have been collecting, and she would keep doing all that she could for him, killing and lying and pretending even though all he wanted was a smile and a kiss that wasn’t cover and a single secret from her past as a sign that she cared about him as more than just another assignment.

Status quo. She had done everything to protect it, everything to keep it intact, everything to ensure that it wasn’t ruined. And now…now it was safe, and she felt as if something precious were slipping away from her.

He loved her. He thought she deserved someone like Cole, blind to the fact that she _did_ deserve someone like that but that she wanted someone even better—she wanted _him_ even though he was so much more than she deserved. He admitted that he couldn’t keep pretending that his feelings were only a cover if they lived together—blind to the fact that she wasn’t pretending either, that none of what really mattered was a cover at all.

He asked if she understood.

“I do,” she finally managed to say, and almost managed to miss the irony of those two words. Almost managed to ignore how famous that phrase was in a different setting. Almost managed to pretend she didn’t suddenly feel as if she had been kicked in the gut with the _wanting_ that possessed her.

She did understand.

But she wondered if he did.

Did he understand that there was nothing more terrifying to her than seeing him hurt or dead? Did he understand that there was nothing more awful to contemplate than a life apart from him? Did he understand that she could not bear to think of a day when he didn’t smile and joke and worry about his sister and her fiancé and tell stories about playing video games with Morgan? Did he understand that she had sacrificed everything in her entire life—even her own identity—for things that no longer mattered nearly as much as he did?

Did he understand that she needed him to be Chuck? That she needed him to be innocent and goofy and charming and nervous and afraid of needles and totally incompetent with a gun and willing to take constant heckling from Casey without growing bitter? Did he understand that she could only be real if _he_ were real?

She didn’t think he did. She didn’t think he _could_ understand just how unique and special and priceless he really was. She didn’t think he could ever understand just what measures could or had to be taken to ensure that he never _did_ understand.

He was Chuck. That was all. That was enough. That was everything.

So she would sit silently by this fountain and pretend she didn’t know exactly what he was saying when he promised that he would one day be with the girl he loved. She would say nothing as he limped away. She wouldn’t look behind her to see him disappear into the home full of people who would worry over his twisted ankle and get him whatever he needed and pamper him simply because they loved him—people who knew nothing of spook doctors that did what had to be done and left without a single word spoken.

She wouldn’t think about what could have been if he had let her interrupt him before he could give his rejection speech and had actually heard her tell him that Cole and Bryce and every other man in the world might as well be paper cutouts for all she cared. She wouldn’t remember the kiss he had given her at Roan Montgomery’s behest or the tears that had stung her bloody cuts when she had thought him dead in the exploding Nerd Herder or the giddy elation that had filled her when she heard him tell Jill the one thing he could not forgive her for was trying to kill _her_.

She wouldn’t think at all. Wouldn’t move, wouldn’t consider, wouldn’t remember. She would simply sit and contemplate the additional substance and form given that growing, wavering silhouette within her. She would curl around it and let it fashion itself around her maturing understanding of what it was to selflessly love another, form itself around her resolution to protect Chuck, harden around her conviction that Chuck _needed_ to be safe so that one day he could be as happy as _he_ wanted to be.

And she would hope—desperately, longingly, wistfully—that his happiness could somehow include her.

\---


	3. Broken

\---

March, 2010

\---

“What I was going to ask you a minute ago, or—or what I was going to say, anyway, is that I’ve been, um…I’ve been thinking about what it was like between us. Before Prague. And, uh, thinking about what life would be like for us if we’d made different decisions back then. If _I’d_ made a different decision back then. Look, I know we couldn’t be together before because I wasn’t a real spy, but if I pass this test, then we wouldn’t have to choose between the job and us. If I pass this test, we could be together. That is, of course, if you’re willing to give it another shot.”

Numb. She was completely, utterly numb, could feel the debilitating deadness that had once characterized her every action of every day, every thought of every moment, now returning from its long absence to flow through her limbs with leaden silkiness, weighting her so heavily to the ground that she couldn’t move at all, frozen in this instant of time. And how ironic that the once-familiar numbness should accost her now, so unexpectedly, when she no longer wanted it even though she had been seeking it, courting it, ever since Chuck had placed the proof of her love for him—those precious tickets to a life where the real her would be free to shine beneath an alias, continually and daily strengthened and invigorated by his presence and devotion—placed them back into her hands and then shut his eyes against her heartbreak.

He had made her feel, had woken long dormant sensations and birthed never-before-felt emotions, had ripped her from a life of duty only and country first, coaxed her from her walls with a joke and a grin and an invitation and his hand in hers…and then, when it mattered the most, when she had risked everything and given up all, he had walked away.

That had hurt. Oh, how it hurt. She had tried hard to convince herself that it didn’t, tried to pretend she could still subsist on national obligation alone, had dived into her assignments in an effort to reclaim her long-lost agent mode…but it had been useless. Once the emotions had been torn from their Pandora’s box, they could not be shoved back inside and locked away in the dark. Just one sight of Chuck, walking across that dance floor toward her in the Nerd Herder uniform she had feared he would never wear again, had brought all the painful, conflicting emotions back in full force and no amount of brutal slaps or bo training sessions or quick, disdainful exits could keep her safe behind walls that had long since ceased to shut him out or masks he could so easily see through or shields his smile could cut through like paper.

Only…this new Chuck—this Chuck 2.0—didn’t smile like he once had, so uninhibitedly, so easily, so frequently. He didn’t laugh as much either, a strain of tension or confusion or desperation always tainting that once-free sound that had rang like a melody in those days that, in hindsight, seemed so beautiful despite their complications. This Chuck didn’t want a normal life, didn’t talk about revealing his secret to Ellie, didn’t wax philosophical about video games, didn’t see past her façade like he once had. This Chuck wanted to be a spy, voluntarily attended training, forced flashes, burned assets, and thought a pill that could erase his personality was something to be desired.

In short, this Chuck was a complete stranger.

Or so she had thought. But now, with nothing inside her to cloud her vision—no spark, no reaction, no emotion, just that utterly cold numbness lining her bones and clogging her veins and tightening her skin—now she knew that he was still Chuck. Still eager, still awkward, still nervous, still wholehearted, still…innocent.

Trapped by his words, unable to move even an inch lest the moment disappear and this familiar Chuck vanish like a mirage in the desert, she felt as if she might shatter, break into a thousand pieces right in front of him and slip like dust through his fingers. That was such a terrifying mental image that she couldn’t even lower the binoculars from her eyes, could only continue to look through them as if she were still interested in this test, still concerned about helping Chuck eradicate all the things that made him great, still able to think about the newest in a long line of missions that made the world a better place and slashed her insides to finer and finer shreds. She wondered, with all the cool detachment the engrained numbness provided her, if maybe this hadn’t been her problem ever since that day in Prague—frozen in place, looking far away at things that didn’t matter at all while she missed all the important details sitting right next to her.

He was looking at her, she knew—he always was. His eyes burned into her as if they possessed literal heat, as earnest as always but warier, more tentative and yet assertive at the same time, trapped in that fateful moment just as she was. They were begging her, she knew without even looking, begging her wordlessly just as he ever had, and she thought she might split into two from the differing thoughts within her head.

He was still the old Chuck—loving her, wanting her, inviting, asking, pushing, teasing to disguise how much he _wanted_ , surprising her with the unexpected sizzling shrimp and champagne and music, always going ten steps further than anyone else would.

And yet, simultaneously, he was so different—so ably setting up surveillance on a mark, working so hard to become a spy, lying so easily to everyone, pursuing a normal girl without once complaining about lying to her, burning an asset that could have easily been his friend, prepared to leave his friends and family for an assignment in Rome.

It seemed the glimpses of the old Chuck—the one she had sworn to protect and save from her cold, dead world—became fewer and farther between every day…but she hadn’t exactly been looking, had she? She had left him, had walked away just as he had, hoping against hope that if she did to him what he had done to her, the pain would miraculously disappear. She had been trying to reclaim that cool, sharp aloofness for months now, throwing herself back into the spy world she had thought she had left behind forever, obeying every order given her by the government she had betrayed for nothing, throwing herself into the arms of a spy who would never need protecting, who knew how to use a gun, who would never break under torture, who was good and heroic and admirable and did it all without ever once doubting his own abilities or worth.

And all of that…all it had succeeded in doing was making the pain worse. All it had done was rip her heart into tinier and tinier pieces until she feared that it didn’t even exist any longer.

She had even told Shaw her real name because, after all, it _wasn’t_ real anymore, was it? Sarah Walker was who she really was, a silhouette that had grown into so much more—grown to become all that she was—the real her that had thrived and grown and developed and glimpsed a chance for happiness that had so quickly been doused. She had thought that if she reclaimed her name—the first she had ever been given, the one on her redacted birth certificate—she could make _Sarah_ the unreal, could make _Sarah Walker_ fade back into the realm of aliases, taking the pain and regret and bittersweet joy and _Chuck_ and closing it all up in a file of a past mission.

But it hadn’t worked because Sam was a fake, a relic of the past, something that no longer fit her—maybe never had…just like Shaw.

He was good and perfect and whole and so far removed from the asset she had been assigned three years ago…yet his flashes of humor and his kind gestures and his forthright manner reminded her of Chuck. In fact, sometimes she couldn’t tell whether she was with Shaw because he was nothing like Chuck at all or because he was so similar to Chuck. And the similarities were growing, weren’t they? Chuck was embracing Shaw’s guidance, delighted to find someone who believed in him, determined to live up to Shaw’s expectations, listening to everything the special agent taught him, accepting every mission he gave him, doing whatever he was told. Including now, this mission—this final test to become a spy.

To become her.

Her finger twitched on the binoculars, and she fought the urge to scream out her denial, her horror, her anguish.

It was true—Chuck was turning into her. She had left her spy life and gone to make a semi-normal life with him, give him everything he had said he wanted, but their timing had been awful because he had taken her ill-advised compliment as advice and chosen to be a hero and downloaded the Intersect 2.0. Just as she had finally chosen his life, he had chosen hers, and now they were trapped once again on opposite worlds. And she was watching him from afar, day by day, as the openhearted nerd was submerged beneath a field operative, conforming bit by bit to the Intersect programming in his head and the orders given him by Beckman and Shaw and even Casey…and the example she had left him.

And now, with his words echoing through the abandoned floor he had claimed for their stakeout, now she knew that all of it—the loss of his goofiness and his simple happiness and his aversion to violence and his desire for normalcy—all of it was _her_ fault.

The ease with which he could lie to everyone he met and everyone he loved…her fault.

The solitude that engulfed him as the spy life pushed away all of his friends and family…her fault.

The desire to leave behind all that had made him into the best man she had ever met and immerse himself in the world of espionage…her fault.

Her fault. It colored every aspect of her life, made it impossible—even more so than it usually was in his presence—to snatch hold of a coherent thought, to lower the concrete barrier, the binoculars, serving as a mask over her features, to face him and see just how much of his life she had destroyed by leading him on and then walking away.

Her fault. All her fault.

She had known it before, tried to deny it, to ignore it, but now it was inescapable, spoken in his voice so that she couldn’t help but hear it, couldn’t help but give it greater credence than she would have had it been uttered in anyone else’s voice, couldn’t help but recognize it as truth. She had destroyed Chuck Bartowski, had fashioned him into another her—cold and dead and aloof and purposeless and so, so lost—and now he was destined for the same agony that had consumed her since he had mouthed his apology to her over Bryce’s dead body.

“If I pass this test, we could be together,” he said, as if it were that simple, as if she hadn’t condemned him to an emotionless death by stringing him along, never quite strong enough to disavow him completely, never quite brave enough to claim him as her own. As if he would still be the same Chuck when it was all said and done. As if she could still be with him even after ruining him.

“That is, of course, if you’re willing to give it another shot,” he said, doing as he had always done, leaving himself open to painful rejection and terrifying vulnerability, leaving it up to her even though he expected disappointment. Yet still he asked, still he laid his heart on the line, still he couldn’t quite give up that hope he hadn’t fully lost yet.

And so she was finally able to lower the binoculars, finally able to turn her head to look at him.

And she was right—meeting his eyes was like being kicked in the stomach by Mauser again, a blow with enough force to send the breath crashing out of her and to dislodge that numbness before it could once more consume her completely.

And she felt again. Felt—not pain—but hope. Sheer, unadulterated hope. Because when she looked at him— _really_ looked, with eyes that were Sarah’s, not Sam’s, she saw…she saw Chuck.

He was still there.

As if death and deception and missions and tranq guns and conscience-killing pills and assassin aliases and a broken heart couldn’t touch that inner strength of his. As if nothing had changed between them at all in the last year. As if Shaw didn’t exist.

And for that moment, while she looked into his desperate and sincere eyes, she believed him. She believed in that world contained in his eyes, where grim cynicism and harsh realities couldn’t touch them. Believed that they were the only two people in this world where Beckman was far away and Shaw meant nothing and Casey wouldn’t turn them in and there was no need whatsoever for a final spy test.

And the glimpse of that world—the sight of his very soul, undiluted and pure, shining from him—was enough to draw her forward. She had no words, just as usual, but this time she didn’t need them. She knew how to answer his question, knew how to give him what he had been hoping, waiting, asking for since he had first met her. Knew how to assuage the ache that had grown large enough to devour her heart ever since she had begun avoiding him, knew how to satisfy the hunger within her, knew how to quiet the clamor that had started the instant she had demanded he kiss her and then slapped him down for his efforts.

In truth, looking into his hopeful, fearful eyes, it was the only reply she could give him.

She leaned toward him, soft and warm and relaxed, her eyes locked on his, her lips parting.

Astonishment eclipsed the desperation in his gaze, but he leaned forward, too, and she could smell the champagne on his breath, could feel the heat of his hand where he had placed it on the arm of her chair, could practically taste his lips due to the combination of memories and dreams she had silently, secretly treasured over the past few years.

And in that moment, as her eyes fluttered closed and her stomach dropped away and her bones hollowed to leave her light enough to float away, she knew this was right. This was perfect. This was everything she had ever wanted, even before she knew it—or he—existed.

This was right because not only had he made her real, not only had he given her a life worth living, but he also colored her life and her inner self with beauty and passion and hope and sincerity. She had been on hundreds of stakeouts, but only when he had joined her had there been music on any of them. Only with him was there dinner and champagne and humor and songs he chose specifically with her in mind. Only with him was life worth living for instead of dying for.

Sarah Walker was real, no matter how hard she had tried to lock her away, and she dressed in blue because he loved that color on her and she smelled white gardenias because he brought them to her hospital room and she loved brown because that was the color of his eyes and she listened to music because he made her personalized CDs and she wore orange because she had to protect him and she looked at him and saw the world explode from its dim gray-black cocoon in a plethora of colors and scents and sounds she had never known existed. She was more than just a wavering silhouette now; she was three-dimensional and whole and solid and fleshed out.

And all because of Chuck, who was about to kiss her, his lips only millimeters from hers. Kissing him was suddenly the most imperative thing in the world, in all of existence, and there was nothing wrong with it, not now, not when he had once more handed his bruised and battered and broken heart to her, not when she was finally able to forget Prague and remember the words he had blurted just before passing out and falling in a drugged stupor into her arms.

She inhaled the warmth of his breath, all mingled sweetness and peppermint…and then, abruptly, the moment was broken, shattered and vanished and consigned to the past almost before it had even had a chance to _be_.

The world he had personified disappeared. The colors he had brought to life faded into concealing shadows. The rightness she had felt between them popped as if it were a bubble pricked with a pin.

And just that suddenly, Shaw existed again and Chuck’s final test mattered and the target was on the move and the assignment was paramount. Just that suddenly, she was broken again, hesitant and unsure and hurting and so terribly, awfully confused.

She almost wept, almost broke down then and there and crumpled to the ground and demanded that her world right itself. Almost gave up, almost tore the earpiece from her ear and tossed it aside, almost cried out all the things bottled up inside her so that Chuck could finally hear them.

But with Chuck’s eyes no longer on her, no longer illuminating the real world, her training prevailed and she did none of those things. The very existence of Chuck prevented her from turning back into the frozen agent she had been before Burbank and Bartowskis and charm bracelets, yet the hopelessness of the situation kept her moving in prescribed lines, speaking acceptable words, giving nothing away.

And then he looked at her again, and there was none of the hurt defeat she had grown so used to seeing in those brief glimpses of him she allowed herself; instead, he was determined, bold, resolute, and she couldn’t help but notice that her heart skipped a beat or three.

Things were still wrong. He was still disappearing smile by joke by earnest regret. She was still broken, barely holding herself together, faking the things that had once comprised her whole life. But as he stood there and promised that he would not give up, would not disappear, would not let go of her…for the first time since the aftermath of a beautiful wedding, hope suddenly seemed as if it might be as real as she was now.

And she knew—Chuck would never, ever turn into her. But she…she might yet be able to fit herself into his world.

So she smiled. Not a fake smile. Not a cover smile. Not a spy smile. A real smile. Because he had smiled at her, and his genuineness beget her own. Because the memory of the perfection of that almost-kiss dominated her thoughts. Because he hadn’t given up on her.

And after what seemed a terrible dream that had lasted forever, she felt herself beginning to wake, stirred by the realization that Chuck could make hope appear as miraculously as he could identify criminals from a flash and learn kung fu in an instant and so quickly form a plan based on comic books and sci-fi movies and fantasy books that would nonetheless rectify any situation no matter how bad.

Nothing was right yet…but now she knew—it could be again. Someday. And she would keep hoping, keep waiting, keep praying until that day came.

Her devotion to him—more real than anything else in all of her existence—demanded no less.

\---


	4. Safe

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May, 2011

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“Uh…right. My vows. My turn for vows. They just don’t cut it. I’m sorry, Sarah. How do I express the depth of my love for you? Or my dreams for our future? Or the fact that I will fight for you everyday? Or that our kids will be like little superheroes with little capes and stuff like that? Words can’t express that—they don’t do it justice, they just don’t cut it. So no vows. I’ll just prove it to you. Every day for the rest of our lives. You can count on me.”

Beautiful. Absolutely, wholly, flawlessly beautiful. Never in her life had anything even come close to achieving this level of total perfection. From the white gardenias scenting the open air to the tears glistening in Morgan’s eyes as he struggled for the composure necessary to finish the ceremony. From the flower arrangements held in the hands of her bridesmaids—her _friends_ —to the stolid, reassuring presence of Casey, who had walked her down the aisle, providing her back-up even here. From the dress that draped her form in pristine white to the unabashed fervency in Chuck’s eyes as he swore his eternal love—the love he had already given a hundred times over and proven just as many times—to her. From the smallest detail to the largest, this moment was absolutely _beautiful_.

_He_ was beautiful. Tall, not nearly as gangly as he had been when she had first met him, trapped behind the Nerd Herd desk, unsure and awkward yet so giving and empathetic. He had a confidence about him now that he hadn’t possessed then; the strength he had finally realized had always been within him now showed apparent in his controlled movements and steady gaze; the shadows in his eyes that had come from expecting disappointment had been banished, allowing emerald-copper to shine undimmed.

The words he spoke were beautiful. They outlined a life she had never thought could be hers, a life she had, outside of a few melancholy daydreams, never really thought she’d want, a life that wouldn’t even be possible for them if any of a hundred—a _thousand_ —factors had gone differently in the past four years. A life that was in and of itself inherently beautiful.

And she… _she_ felt beautiful.

The CIA had taken her in as a homely teenager and transformed her, under their protective care, into their changeling, aesthetically pleasing and polished, sophisticated and graceful, educated and competent. Men the world over had told her she was beautiful…but they complimented only the window dressing her country had issued her for those missions when Kevlar vests and camouflage uniforms and hand-weapons weren’t possible. It wasn’t until _he_ had looked at her, dropping the phone from his ear in shock, his eyes telegraphing his awe, that she had felt as beautiful as she had been told she was. Maybe because he looked at her and really _saw_ her— _her_ , not the agent or the socialite or the waitress or whatever other cover she had been assigned. He looked at Sarah Walker and thought her beautiful, whether she was dressed in a belly-dancer costume in order to seduce him or lying in a hospital bed due to the painful, debilitating effects of the Norseman device.

His hands were steady in hers, and they weren’t moist in the least, as if he wasn’t nervous about this moment, this decision, this oath, at all. As if he had never been more certain of anything in his life. And it was fitting that he should be fearless here, in the realm of vulnerability and emotion and eternal devotion, unafraid in those places where she trembled and hesitated, just as she protected him during those ever-dwindling moments when he faltered.

But then….she wasn’t afraid either, was she? What, after all, did she have to be afraid of? Only losing out on this chance to bind her life and heart to his. Only missing out on the opportunity to be forever loved, openly and uninhibitedly, by Chuck Bartowski, to swear her own unending love to him. She had already glimpsed what her life would be like without him, already knew just how far she would slip without his smile to light her days, already understood just how brittle and fake she became when he wasn’t there to turn her from a shadow into a real, live person. One glimpse of that horrifying fate, that dreadful non-life, was more than enough for her.

So this moment, beautiful and brilliant…it was everything she wanted. It was enough to dull the sting of the lingering weakness brought on by Vivian’s unreasoning hatred. It was enough to soothe the ache of losing the CIA and the validating work they had given her. It was enough to drown out any possible fear of the future.

It was enough, period.

No doubts, no hesitations, no fears. The dry run he had suggested a week before was still fresh in her mind—the fluttering in her stomach subtly different from that felt while walking toward his balcony proposal, the lightheadedness that had spun the room around her as if she were hanging upside down to infiltrate another hotel’s grand suite, the way she hadn’t been able to stop smiling despite the absurd silliness of making twist-ties into rings and using a paper doily as a veil and seeing Chuck’s suit coat over his pajamas. A combination of physical effects and inward bliss so unfamiliar that it had taken her a long moment to realize that what she was feeling was _joy_ , unfettered and real and liberating.

The same physical effects and inward bliss she felt now with the coolness of his wedding ring against her skin, the sight of his earnest face lighting her world and silhouetting in sharp relief all that he had given and brought to her, the happy tears that threatened to burst from within her.

He smiled at her, and that… _that_ was more beautiful than anything else.

She knew Carina thought she had dulled, softened, lost her edge, made herself dangerously vulnerable. She knew Zondra thought she could do so much better than this top-secret field agent who existed totally outside of her understanding. She knew her dad worried that she would need more eventually, that their love would fade and their promises would evaporate under the relentless stream of life. She knew the CIA had worried that she would burn herself out on this relationship, that they would lose their top agent. She knew that clueless, foolish people from the Buy More or from the spy life or even just from the streets looked at her and Chuck together and thought _he_ was the lucky one.

They didn’t understand.

They didn’t know what it was to be so completely closed off that even you yourself didn’t know what the emotions within you were. They didn’t know what it was to suddenly feel a shaft of brilliant warmth cut through that bleak darkness. They didn’t know what it was to have a thoroughly good man look at you and see something worth his time and attention and devotion and love. They didn’t know what it was to be alone and cut off from everything and then suddenly feel the magic connectivity of his embrace. They didn’t know what it was to walk into Castle or the Buy More or any room at all and see him instantly smile and know without a doubt that _you_ were the cause of his incandescent happiness. They didn’t know what it was to be trusted despite deception, to be forgiven despite repeated mistakes, to be accepted despite the _un_ beautiful things within her. They didn’t know what it was to be the center of someone’s whole world.

They didn’t know Chuck.

No relationship Achilles’ heel, no precautionary prenup, no emotional reservations. Only him. Only Chuck Bartowski, super-spy, unashamed nerd, reluctant Nerd Herder, brother extraordinaire, best friend anyone could ever hope to have, willing partner, and a man with more love than she had once thought existed in the whole of the world. No cover or lie, no protocol or rule, no broken heart or bout of insanity, no Russian crime conglomerate or Intersect—nothing—had been able to deter or break him. His strength amazed her, even now, and she wanted that next to her, wanted it for herself, wanted it bolstering her every day.

Because, after everything that had happened, she knew that he was _safe_.

He didn’t have the Intersect anymore, and they were outside the protection of the CIA or NSA, and they still had enemies out there gunning for them…but he was safe nonetheless. Safe because she was at his side, because he won friends and allies wherever he went, because they were together.

And safe for her because she knew he would never hurt her. He would never give her up as her mother had, never abandon her as her father had, never disappoint her as the CIA had, never place a mission over her well-being as Bryce had, never turn on her as Shaw had, never let her slip away as Vivien had thought he would. He would be there for her every time, and he trusted her to be there for him.

“How do I express the depth of my love for you?” he asked, as if even his predilection for talking and his verbal eloquence and his habit of spilling out his soul in a constant soothing stream of words didn’t express it every day.

“I’ll just prove it to you,” he said, as if he hadn’t already. As if his desire to give her the perfect proposal and his belief in her during her undercover days at Volkoff Industries and his drastic, knight-in-shining-armor actions to bring her the Norseman antidote hadn’t been enough.

“You can count on me,” he promised, as if she hadn’t already known that. As if she hadn’t been counting on him for support and trust and truth and love and stability and reassurance and innocence and any of a million other things since the moment she had sat beside him on a beach painted with the soft, fiery beginnings of dawn.

No secrets, no lies, no hiding. There was only him and her. Him—open and unreserved and earnest and sincere and given fully to her. And her…born in her promise to keep him safe, formed around her determination to give him everything he wanted, colored by her own devotion directed solely to him and him alone, and now completed with her vow to be worthy of him.

He looked at her, awaited her response to his vows, and she gave him the only word—the only thought—that could pierce the haze of pure happiness keeping her floating inches above the ground. Gave him the only word that could fully encompass him, encapsulate everything she felt about him, express just how she would describe him if given only an instant instead of the centuries needed for such a pleasing task.

“Perfect.”

And his grin exploded brighter than a flash bomb, prompting her own smile, sparking tears to counter the sheer luminescence of his joy, driving away any hint of fear or regret or doubt before they could even begin to form, making her—the _real_ her, all that was left now that her masks and shields and weapons had been set aside—shine so that she was no longer a shadow, no longer a silhouette, but now a light of her own to cast back at him, to give back to him as much as he gave to her.

Perfect.

There really was no other word. No other feeling. No other reaction. No other man.

Only him. Only Chuck.

He kissed her, his smile meeting hers with the contact of lips against lips so that she not only felt joy but tasted it as well. He took her in his arms, and she gave herself fully to his hold because she was safe with him, because she trusted him, because she loved him with her whole being, with all that she was, with all that he had given her.

She gave herself to him because, after all, there wouldn’t even be a her, wouldn’t be _Sarah Walker_ , if it weren’t for him.

And she laughed because there wouldn’t be any joy or happiness or bliss without him.

And she gave him her heart because it had been his from the moment it had first skipped a beat at the sight of his hesitant, open smile.

And her life wasn’t just beautiful.

It was, in every way, perfect.

\---


	5. Magic

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January, 2012

\---

“You know, Morgan has this crazy idea.”          

Hope. Astonishing hope, so powerful she’d never have known it was her own, flared up within her, mimicking the water crashing and retreating on the sand before them, urging her closer and closer to the man sitting beside her, separated from her by mere inches and five years of history. Hope...and reluctant wariness, like its own form of dampening sand.

Hope because all the words he’d been spilling before her like dreams, like every unconscious wish she’d never allowed herself to have but had anyway, like treasures that he could give out to her so easily only because he was rich with them…they’d filled her up to the brim so that she was willing to snatch at anything—everything, even the name of a porn star— _anything_ that could make her, too, rich with those beautiful, coveted treasures.

But wary because he wanted it—wanted _her_ so badly, so desperately, and she didn’t know what to do when confronted with so much open, _pure_ emotion.

So she looked at him cautiously because to do otherwise would be to reveal how much _she_ wanted too, how much she wished he had a quick fix for this terrible situation, and she asked, “What is it?” because she couldn’t _not_ ask.

His story— _their_ story—still echoed in her ears, embodied by the emotions he had showed so clearly through it that she had laughed and cried more than she had in her entire life, colored by the smell of the sea air and the feel of cool, shifting sand beneath her and the warmth of the rising sun and the feel of his…his _loving_ eyes on her, longing, yearning, yet content just to look at her, just to be the one she could rely on, to be the person she could call, to be the one person she could count on.

She’d never had anyone who could be that for her. Ever. Not her dad, not the CIA, not Bryce. No one.

Except, apparently, she _has_ had that person. For the past five years. Sleeping beside her, eating dinner with her, laughing with her, working beside her, dreaming dreams of the future—a future that extended so much further than the end of their next mission—with her, talking to her with the soothing voice and comforting cadence she knew she could easily listen to for hours without end.

He shifted a bit but looked at her anyway. He was curled up on himself, clasping his wrist in his opposite hand, elbows propped up on his knees. A calming, placating position as if he wanted to gentle her, to lure her in from the wild, to convince her he meant her no harm. It was a self-defensive position, as if he were afraid of being hurt, afraid to give away how much he was feeling, afraid to let her know how vulnerable he really was, afraid to reveal just how completely he wanted her, the whole her, back.

“He thinks that with one kiss, you’ll remember everything.”

The idea was absurd. It was like one of those animated movies about princesses locked in towers or cursed to eternal sleep or trapped in palaces with beasts, movies her dad had always sneered at. It was so ridiculous it didn’t even deserve a response. It was a solution that had no place in the real world bounded about by logic and agencies and mission plans and acceptable casualties.

But this man—Chuck, _her_ Chuck, he’d called himself, she remembered with a pang she couldn’t explain, as deep and biting as if it had touched on something buried within her, and surely it must have because why else would she have let him get so close to her in the Intersect room?—this Chuck was looking at her, and strong as he was trying to be, as calm as he wanted to portray himself, she remembered how lost he had looked in the courtyard when she had told him she believed him but didn’t love him. And she knew…one word from her could shatter him, could tear him up and destroy everything about him and suck all the life from him, could transform his smile into a look of hurt anguish.

And just as she had known that the Wienerlicious counter in Berlin had been set up wrong, she knew that _that_ look from him could very well break _her_. She had, in the past few days of this pseudo-glance into what was, to her, the future, grown accustomed to seeing pained disappointment and ineptly concealed hurt on his face. She had also, within instants of seeing it the first time, grown to hate that look on his face as passionately as she had ever hated anything in her life.

So she didn’t dismiss his suggestion out of hand. Instead, she looked away to regain her composure, and she laughed, and she said, “One magical kiss?”

But her look away wasn’t disdainful, her laugh wasn’t scornful, and her question wasn’t disbelieving.

Because she had seen her recorded self admitting to feelings and relaying accounts of their days together and sporting expressions on her face that she’d never have believed if she hadn’t seen for herself, like looking into a mirror unfettered by the rules of time.

Because she didn’t feel anything whenever she reminded herself that Bryce was dead, yet she felt skydivers dance in the pit of her stomach whenever Chuck smiled at her, had felt flames burn enticingly through her veins when he held her close on that dance floor, had hardly been able to take her eyes off him since she’d started believing him—or even before if she were honest—had felt the world threaten to implode when he had taken that bullet for her, had gasped with the pain that struck so unexpectedly deep when he’d looked at her with wide eyes and blurted, “You’re escaping without me?”

Because something inside of her, some half-felt, half-imagined silhouette within her, resounded at the sound of this Chuck— _her_ Chuck, she found herself thinking possessively—telling her the story of the past—future—five years, revealing gorgeous, breathtaking details like _pizzas without olives_ and _Lisa’s your middle name_ and _your dad finally came through for you_ and _unpacking because you said I was your home_ and _I proposed and you didn’t even have to say your answer aloud_ and _your mom and your sister_ and _our dream home has a white picket fence_. Details that made that inward silhouette strengthen and take on color. Details that made her heart stutter whenever she met his enthralling, enspelling, enamored green-brown eyes.

And if all these things could be true, if this story about her falling in love with a man too good and pure and innocent and selfless to be real could be true…then couldn’t a magical kiss be true?

He laughed too, but there wasn’t a smile on his face, and she knew—without knowing how she knew—that he always concealed hurt or disappointment with humor. “Yeah, it’s...” He looked away, nervous and shy and awkward, but trying to cover it up. Afraid and lost and desperate and grieving but pretending he wasn’t…for her sake. His tone, when he spoke, was utterly wistful and she couldn’t bear to let him be sad anymore. Couldn’t keep frustrating herself by trying to grab hold of that elusive silhouette that was and had everything she wanted and needed.

“Chuck,” she interrupted firmly, surprised herself by the decisiveness imbuing her tone.

“Yeah?” he asked, and she hesitated. Because this was big. This was momentous. This was the difference between the life of dutiful aloneness she remembered and a life loving and being loved by Chuck Bartowski and what if this magical kiss _didn’t_ work? What if he was disappointed yet again and she was forced to go back to this in-between life she’d been trapped in for two interminable weeks? What if this all turned out to be a mirage that vanished once she reached for it?

But that was a fear that didn’t fit in with the _her_ Chuck had told her about, the her that wore a wedding ring and cooked dinner and hugged people freely and had a husband who welcomed her perennially cold feet and sacrificed his greatest desire for others. It was a fear that didn’t feel as strong as it should have if her best memories had been more than transiently erased.

So it was easy, then, to look into his tentative, sad, concerned, hopeful eyes. Easy to give him her response. Easy to make the request that felt so familiar to her heart and fell from her lips with the ease of long practice.

“Kiss me.”

Plea or command, she couldn’t tell, but it didn’t matter because he would have done the same thing for either one.

She could have sworn she’d seen his tiny smile a million times before. Would have been happy to wake up to the sight of it every day for the rest of the life. Thought it would be heaven she’d never thought could be hers if she could be the cause of it.

“You’d remember that a nerdy guy like me who works at the Buy More could make you happy,” he’d told her so earnestly when all his walls and facades—meager as they were—had been tossed aside as if he didn’t need them with her, didn’t mind being vulnerable before her, couldn’t imagine being anything else with her.

She knew, though, with unwavering certainty, that the question wasn’t whether _he_ could make her happy—that was as obvious as his goodness—but whether _she_ —hurt and broken and locked away behind self-imposed walls and now so obviously, tragically damaged—could _she_ make someone as perfect and sincere as him happy? Could she make his eyes light up and his lips curve into a smile and his heart beat faster, just by being _her_? Could she ever be good enough for _him_?

One kiss.

One magical kiss to restore five years of a magical life with a magical man who had a magical family that had once, magically, been hers.

They had kissed before, Chuck and Sarah Bartowski.

But she, Sarah Walker…she didn’t remember ever kissing him. Part of her—the part still entranced by how close he had been to her and how electric his touch had felt on that dance floor in Berlin—raged at the thought of losing such precious, beautiful memories, but most of her was locked onto the fact that now she would get to experience a first kiss with him again, this time without fear of death tapping impatiently on their shoulders. Ironic, really, considering that they had had to have a second first date as well.

She spared a thought to wonder if he had told her that or if she had remembered it on her own, and then his hand, warm and long and firm, settled on her back and all thought fled.

He tilted his head toward her slowly, so slowly, as if afraid to startle her or maybe he wanted to savor this just as much as she did. After all, she had lost memories, but he…he had lost his wife. Worse, he had been attacked by the woman who looked and sounded and smelled and felt exactly like his wife, had been asked to lead her to her death, had been expected to let her go after everything he’d done to win her, had been faced at every turn with her agonizing ignorance of him and her apparent lack of feeling for him.

His touch was so light, his breaths against her face ticklish and light as air…yet she was awed by his strength. His eyes were gentle, tender, soft…yet she was amazed at how much power he held over her.

She didn’t know if this kiss would bring her memories back to her. But she did know that she didn’t need memories to fall in love with this man. She thought that maybe she was already in love with him, had fallen in love with him sometime after he’d given her a massage in their bedroom and before he’d taken her to their dream home and offered up his life to prove his love.

Her eyes fluttered closed as she inhaled the scent of his breath, flavored with so-familiar peppermint and too-tragic tears, and the instant before his lips touched hers, she was filled with a plethora of emotions, all of them different and new and striking resonating chords with that growing, strengthening, ever-more-familiar shape within her.

Then his lips touched hers, melded effortlessly with hers, and she was flying free, unhindered by any of the handicaps and flaws of the her-that-had-been. She was grounded, made whole and safe and completely at home and comfortable in her own skin.

She drank from him as if she’d been thirsty but hadn’t realized it, savoring each touch of his soft lips, lingering over every instant of it, contemplating the kiss in all its facets and realizing that it was exactly, precisely, completely…perfect.

Then his hand rose to caress the line of her cheek and thread through her hair, and her breath was sucked out of her, but that was okay because he had breath enough for both of them, cradling her, shutting out the rest of the world, making a paradise for them both. His arms, though not overly muscular, were strong enough to protect her from anything, even herself. His lips, though nothing like Bryce’s or any other man’s she had kissed, were enough to banish all evils, even her own lack of memories. His warmth, though blunted a bit by the brisk air about them, was enough to counter any chill, no matter how deep. His gentleness, so unique and new and awe-inspiring, was enough to smooth out all the sharp edges her life had bestowed on her. His heart, unearthing and reviving and meeting hers, was enough, more than enough, to bring that shadowed silhouette within her into the forefront, fierce and strong and passionate and whole and so, so real.

He kissed her, and she knew—she knew she loved him. She knew he was her everything.

He kissed her, and she never wanted him to stop, never wanted to leave his embrace, never wanted to move from this moment. But this moment would inevitably end, she knew, and that was okay after all because with him…with him, she had a future.

When she finally pulled away to look into his eyes, she brought up a hand to his face, marveling at the feel of his skin, the captivating contradictions of smooth skin and hints of rough stubble, the hope and love in his beautiful eyes that spoke so eloquently though no words passed his lips.

The sunrise behind them was lighter and freer and clearer than the one they had first shared together on the morning this beach had become so important to them, when the obstacles they had yet to face then had loomed before them with such a thin sliver of hope to be found. Now, this more pastel, freer dawn, mingled with a hundred closely linked shades, colored his features with a lighting that suited him impeccably, highlighting all his good qualities—and there were so many of those.

He didn’t speak, but he didn’t have to. His face spoke for him. His touch spoke for him. His heart spoke for him.

And she smiled, then, because she didn’t have to disappoint him anymore. She smiled because from now on, she would make him smile. She smiled because she was real and alive and safe and whole and nothing would ever change that. She smiled because she knew he would smile back at her.

“Chuck,” she whispered, and it was enough. Enough to make him shine brighter than the cresting sun. Enough to make him happy enough to tighten his hold on her and lean forward without any hint of concern and kiss her again, a kiss that tasted of joy and beauty and a past and a present and a future and a love large enough to encompass them all.

One kiss.

One magical kiss.

But now that everything was clear, she knew the truth. It wasn’t the kiss that was magical…it was him.

And like one of those princesses, she basked in his magic and gave her nerd in shining armor a healing kiss of his own.

And she was, finally and wholly, happy. Because she, Sarah Walker, was enough for Chuck Bartowski. And if that wasn’t magic, then nothing was.

 The End


End file.
